Clearly James, who used to be a BBC governor, is not one of those older women – she's 89 – whom the Beeb is gagging to rehire; not because Harriet Harman says they should, but because it's seriously stupid not to have older women around the building. The country is awash with older widows – whoops, I meant women – and they deserve some on-air representation.

But James, a widow for nearly 50 years, was not the only golden oldie in evidence during the festive season. Apart from all those old films and sitcom reruns, there was Shirley Williams, guest-editing Radio 4's Today programme along with James and the affable David Hockney, most of whose energy seemed to be devoted to denouncing the smoking ban.

Williams is sometimes described as the Labour politician who could have been the left's answer to Margaret Thatcher. Wrongly, I think; not tough enough, unlike Barbara Castle, and not decisive enough either. But that's not my point today.

The former sweetheart of the Labour moderates (later SDP moderates) thrust herself forward to interview all sorts of great and good types who were probably smitten by the famous charms of her youth, plus one who was too young to have been at Oxford at the time: Sir John Major.

The former PM is a decent man who did not deserve all the abuse he got in those pre-blogging days, when the worst a chap suffered in the stocks was Spitting Image (quite bad enough). What's more, he keeps his mouth shut most of the time, unlike some ex-tenants of No 10 we could name, couldn't we, Ted and Maggie?

That said, Major's interview about trust was a jaw-dropping bit of revisionism on at least two important counts. Encouraged by Shirl the Pearl, to whom this sort of piety comes naturally, I fear, he said that the key to restoring trust in parliament was the "reassertion of the independence of mind" among backbench MPs.

Since 1997, when Labour MPs were first issued with pagers and the degrading daily "line to take" on current issues, they had been reduced to parroting slogans and bullying by the whips, Major appeared to suggest. Select committees should have more power, draft bills should be pre-published for wider parliamentary and public scrutiny before being enacted.

That last already happens under Labour reforms. But Major's memory plays him false. I too think that backbench MPs should reclaim more power to hold the executive to better account, though there are downsides. Listening to Major you would think he had completely forgotten the humiliating period when the eight or so "whipless" Tory Eurosceptics held the balance of power in the 1992-97 parliament (Major's majority had only been only 21 to start with) and ran his regime ragged.

It's the kind of shambles we can expect if – a big if – Nick Clegg, Williams and co get their way and voters deliver a hung parliament on 6 May. If backstairs deals are your idea of greater accountability, good luck.

As it happens, Dr Philip Cowley and his team at the University of Nottingham have repeatedly demolished the myth that Labour MPs have been supine since 1997. Quite the reverse; they have rebelled in ever-increasing numbers more than in any parliament since 1945 and forced changes in government policy despite the seemingly revolt-proof character of Tony Blair's majorities.

As for parliamentary procedural reforms that weakened backbench power, Major should know, because the Jopling report (1994), which led to the routine timetabling of legislation (ie time limits), was introduced as part of the "modernisation" agenda on his watch – with the support of a Labour frontbench that rightly expected to be in power shortly.

The process has continued in the name of "family friendly" hours and other questionable cosmetics ever since.

My point here is not to harry Major, merely to remind him – and readers – that the rascally manipulation of procedure did not start, as so many think, with Tony Blair's election. John Smith pulled out of "pairing" MPs – so that absentees could cancel each other out – because of perceived abuses under Major.

I could go on – and will. Major, encouraged by Williams, deplored the "black arts" of spin, though they were certainly around in his day – as they were in Cicero's. As Thatcher said when opposing candour over the role of MI6 in 1979, she was taught by two future judges: "Never admit anything unless you have to; and then only for specific reasons and within defined limits."

We learned that from the release of the 1979 cabinet papers over Christmas – under the 30-year rule. Labour's Jim Callaghan, then still in No 10, had ignored her advice and allowed publication of MI6's wartime history. It does not smack of candour in the Tory years under which Major prospered, does it?

I do not make the point to warn you how awful a Cameron-led government may be; I leave it to the likes of Polly Toynbee and Peter Oborne to make your spine tingle about the crimes of one side or the other.

On the contrary, all governments have good points and bad ones, successes and failures, but they also have much in common: expediency and the sheer press of events often make them act in the same way.

Major's killer point, as he saw it, was Iraq. In the mid-90s the Clinton administration had sounded him out about overthrowing Saddam Hussein, he revealed. He saw them off. When he inherited Thatcher's war to retake invaded Kuwait in 1990-91 he had kept his cabinet informed and always told them "less than I knew" about Saddam's weapons programmes. He had supported the 2003 invasion on the assumption that Blair had done the same.

Personally, I hope he is. It's about time. One person who could benefit from a burst of frankness is Sir John Major.

He told Shirley Williams that he and George Bush Sr had not pressed on to Baghdad in 1991 because: (a) it was illegal and (b) they would have to occupy the country.

Both good points, but not the whole story. I remember Major telling the Commons soon after the ceasefire that he did not expect Saddam to last long in power. Indeed, no: the Shia revolt in the south was supposed to put paid to him. But it didn't. It was suppressed with dreadful violence by agents of the Sunni dictatorship while the west, the UN, the Sunni Arab world and its ex-Soviet allies looked on.

So the problem festered unresolved until the next time, as we all now know, with most top people convinced that Saddam was developing WMD because that's what he kept saying. The same sort of people who put down the Shia revolt in 1991 are behind the "resistance" to the Shia majority regime in Baghdad. That's hardly a secret either.

I don't blame Major for tweaking his version of events. We all do it; it's human nature. Tony Blair will do too when he gives evidence to Sir John Chilcot – but not as much as many of the hindsight merchants on his case.